


Candles for Amy

by Arien



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Birthday Cake, Birthday Fluff, Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arien/pseuds/Arien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty years, three major birthdays and all the wishes in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candles for Amy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Amy Day (Sept 28th) on Tumblr.

**Ten.**

The round white cake bore ten blue candles. Dancing flames flickered across Amelia Pond's face as she leaned close, hands holding back her thick ginger hair. She had a few seconds, precious, precious seconds that only came once a year - those brief moments that were for her and the universe alone. Santa would always listen because he liked children. However, the universe had a lot more to see to, and Amelia would never bother it unless it was at this sacred, special time.

She closed her eyes, filled her lungs with air, and _wished._

Wishing was a powerful thing. If it was to be done right then it took a lot of work. She never understood how some kids just shut their eyes as if it were nothing, rattling off a quick wish while thinking of the cake beneath their noses. If wishes could come true, then this was how it was done. She tried wishing on stars sometimes, too, but the flames of stars were very far away. The candles were right here, and when she blew them out they would hear and carry her wishes to wherever wishes went.

Amelia _wished._

A round of applause was her confirmation that all the candles were out. Amelia never missed a single one. She opened her eyes and looked down at the smoke rising from the candles with a satisfied grin. 

"What did you wish for?" Aunt Sharon asked, gently bumping Amelia aside so she could cut the cake. 

The table was surrounded with neighbourhood kids invited for the party. Amelia would not have called most of them her friends, since she had fought (and beaten) just about every child gathered. She was an outsider with strange ideas; Amelia thought they had come for cake and party games, and maybe because they were afraid _not_ to.

On the other side of the table, Mels rolled her eyes. "If she tells you _that_ , it won't come true!"

"That's right!" Aunt Sharon, pretending she had forgotten. If anybody believed her, Amelia thought, they were a moron. She pulled out the first slice of cake to oohs and aahs. There were seven layers inside, all the colours of the rainbow. She began laying slices on paper plates. 

Amelia took hers into the front room and sat on the sofa, plate on her knees. The two people who she genuinely counted as her friends joined her. Mels, who sat next to her and began dividing her cake into its individual colours, had to be the fussiest eater Amelia knew. It was not so much that she wouldn't eat certain foods, it was that everything had to be eaten a certain way. Coloured cakes, it seemed, had to be devoured shade by shade. The second person was Rory, small and mousy-haired, who sat on the floor. His cake was already half-eaten.

"I know what you wished for," Mels said grandly, sucking icing off her fingers. " _You_ wished the Doctor would come back."

Amelia pressed her lips together. If she confessed, her wish wouldn't come true. She took a big bite of the sweet and buttery cake.

"You don't have to say it," Mels continued, prising a green layer away from the yellow, "I was wishing for it, too."

"And me," Rory added, which earned him a funny look from Amelia. Sometimes, she thought he said he believed the Doctor was real just to be nice to her - and she didn't need anybody's pity. "I did!"

"Maybe he'll hear this time," said Mels, busy with her cake.

Amelia took another bite of her own. Maybe he would. Later that night, tried out her new gel pens by drawing the blue police box. When Aunt Sharon saw she had used up all her blue on one picture she was angry, but held her tongue for the sake of Amelia's birthday. But Amelia knew she'd be in for it tomorrow. Sure enough, the following day she overheard her Aunt on the telephone, making arrangements for her to see another psychiatrist.

She went into her room and carefully pinned the latest picture up on her wall. It reeked of ink. She wrinkled her nose and looked up at it, lips bunched to one side. It was a good picture. Her only regret was that she hadn't left any blue to draw the Raggedy Doctor beside it.

 

**Twenty.**

"Did you make this?" Amy laughed in total disbelief.

Twenty candles stood in a chocolate cake, and the icing was sloughing off he sides.

"Yeah! I can bake! I can follow a recipe! Might've ... might've put the icing on before it cooled down enough, though," Rory bent sideways, examining the runny sides. "Oh dear..."

Mels crossed her arms and leaned against the kitchen unit, smirking. "Man of many talents."

"Why didn't you just buy one?"

"Cos I wanted to make it special for your birthday! Anyone can buy you a cake! Not anyone could make you one ... quite this good ... with such _character_ ... er, would you mind blowing out the candles now, it's just I think those ones might slide off."

Amy pulled him upright by the back of his shirt and planted a kiss squarely on his lips. "Thank you," she said. The cake was a joke but its intention was anything but. Amy pressed her hair on to her shoulders to keep it back and closed her eyes.

Wishing now meant as much as it had _then._ She took a deep breath and pictured exactly what she wanted in her mind's eye. It was easier for this birthday than it had been for the others. The Doctor was fresh in her mind ... and in her heart, as the ache of once again being left behind was restored. It had never really gone away. _Believe for twenty minutes_ , he'd said, but it had cost her more than mere belief. 

Old hurts and confusion and anger loomed in her mind, but longing and hope would always be more powerful. She wished as hard and fervently as she ever had, as she forever would.

When she straightened up the candles were out, their smoke rising toward the kitchen ceiling. She looked at Mels, who didn't have to say a word. Amy's wish was not the only one made. She turned to Rory.

"Happy birthday," he said, "I wished too." 

This time, Amy didn't doubt him.

 

**Thirty.**

The party of Amy's thirtieth took place the weekend prior. Her actual birthday fell on a Wednesday, which made it impossible to arrange something everyone could attend. They hired a room behind a pub. The cake was the biggest she'd ever had. It was a great rectangular thing, professionally made and iced, designed to be eaten by the dozens of invited guests.

"I'm never going to find enough candles for this one," Rory teased as he drove them to the pub. "You're too old."

"I don't want candles anyway," Amy replied, thinking more of her age than the wishes she once made. "I'm too old for that many!"

However, when the cake was unveiled thirty candles stood tall. Amy shot Rory a very dangerous glare. "I said ..."

"Ten each."

"River!"

Amy turned at the familiar voice and embraced her daughter. "Hello! What are you doing here?"

"Well, I wasn't very well going to miss your thirtieth, was I?"

Rory glanced around behind her. "Is, uh ..."

"No," River responded with an edge of finality. 

Just her, then. And that was okay. The three of them approached the cake together on separate sides of the table. They glanced around at one another. The timing needed to be just right. Amy and River held back their hair. In perfect synchronisation they filled up their lungs and blew out every candle. They didn't need to close their eyes to make wishes anymore.

On the day of her actual birthday, Rory presented Amy with a single cupcake. 'Cupcake' was rather a loose term. It was in a paper cup, but it required both hands to hold it. A big, blue candle poked out of the top, the flame waving in the garden breeze.

"Make a wish," Rory said, passing it to her. 

Amy gazed down at it. For the first time in twenty-three years, she was challenged with what she should wish for. Wishes had been granted, and she was no longer the girl she had been. There were other things she ought to wish for, things for just the two of them ... but wishes could not perform miracles, and they should not be wasted trying.

As she held her cake, deliberating, a familiar sound filled the garden. The breeze picked up, leaves blowing, dust flying. Amy looked down at the candle just as the blue box settled and the flame went out.

It was the first birthday candle she had not blown out herself, on the first year the Doctor had actually shown up on her birthday. It should've pleased her, but she felt almost _disturbed_. It shattered a pattern; everything was changing. Two lives, two directions and now ... this.

"Happy birthday Pond!" Came a great cry from the doorway. The Doctor stood, arms spread wide. He charged forward and grabbed her in a bone-crushing, cake-crumbling hug. "And which one's this?"

"Thirty."

"Blimey, thirty." He pulled back and looked her quickly over. "Looks it, too. Hello, Rory!" The Doctor grinned and patted his arm. Then he brought his hands together with a resounding clap.

"Right then, you two. Birthday shenanigans, this way, you won't believe this, but I may have found a moon made of cake! Actual cake! Well not _actual_ cake, it's more of a fungal compound that has a _consistency_ of cake but I think it's worth a try!" He was already on his way back to the TARDIS. "Well? Come along, Ponds! You don't think your daughter's going to wait around there forever, do you? Knee deep in cake!" He checked his watch and went a little pale. "Already been nine hours ..." He pivoted and disappeared inside.

Amy brushed smushed cake off her top. 

"Fungal cake?" Rory pointed at the TARDIS. "Did he say _fungal cake?_ "

Amy shook her head. His guess as as good as hers. Rory went back and locked up the house because god knew when the Doctor would have them back.

"What did you wish for?" Rory asked as they headed into the TARDIS.

Amy glanced at the Doctor, flipping switches and turning knobs on the console, and then back at her husband. She smiled.

"Nothing," she lied.


End file.
